The McNay's Biggest Fall Show Was Already in the Building

Modern Paris: A Century Begins opens at the McNay Art Museum on October 30. It brings together more than 50 paintings, prints and sculptures by Matisse, Picasso, Modigliani, Morisot, Chagall, Braque, Soutine and van Gogh, and every one of them comes from the McNay's own permanent collection. There are no loans or traveling crates. The season's headline show has been sitting a few minutes up North New Braunfels Avenue from Terrell Hills the whole time.

Most of the rest of the McNay's fall works the same way. The museum is rehanging, regrouping and reinterpreting what it owns, and most of these shows run into early 2027. For people who live near 6000 N. New Braunfels Ave., that changes the math on a visit. This season rewards several short trips during the free hours more than a single ticketed afternoon.

More than fifty works, no loans

The museum's August 26 announcement opens the exhibition with Alfred Sisley's The Route from Saint-Germain to Marly from 1872, a painting shown in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874. From there it follows the move through Cézanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin and Renoir into Fauvism and Cubism. Picasso's 1912 collage Guitar and Wine Glass is in it, built from wallpaper, a newspaper clipping and sheet music. So are two pieces from the McNay's Tobin Collection of Theatre Arts: Matisse's Robe for the Emperor costume for the ballet Le Chant du Rossignol and Picasso's maquette for Le Tricorne. The printmaking section includes etchings from Matisse's first artist's book, Poésies de Stéphane Mallarmé, published by Albert Skira in 1932.

Matthew McLendon, the museum's director and CEO, is also the show's curator. He explains why these works haven't been seen together before:

"Much of these holdings have been distributed across the permanent collection galleries in thematic hangs or off view. Bringing key works together in this way illustrates how the McNay's collection can highlight this important moment in western art history."

Some of these works have hung in the building all along, spread across rooms and arranged around other themes. Others have been off view. The same announcement credits Marion Koogler McNay with buying French modernists in the 1930s and 1940s, "at a time when many of these artists were not yet the canonical figures they later became." The show runs through January 24, 2027.

The same idea runs through the rest of the building

Modern Paris is the largest example, but three other projects take the same approach.

Two Faced: An Exhibition of Artists' Portraits, in Two Parts opened September 3. Its first installation stays up through November 29, and a second set of works on paper goes up December 17. The show runs through March 14, 2027. Because the selection changes in mid-December, a visit in October and another in January will show you different art under the same title.

Collection Conversations: Cruz Ortiz and the Modern Portrait opened August 19 and also runs through March 14, 2027. It hangs paintings by the San Antonio artist next to modern portraits from the McNay's collection. Here a living local painter becomes a way to rethink pieces the museum already owns.

The third project is the one exception, and it actually supports the pattern. In June the McNay announced a three-year loan from the Robertson Foundation of four paintings by Maurice de Vlaminck and André Derain. The paintings anchor a dedicated modern-painting gallery and are scheduled to stay through August 2029. This loan isn't a short visit. It will hang beside the collection for years.

The one show that came from outside

The other October 30 opening is the season's real arrival. The Suki Seokyeong Kang exhibition brings nearly 40 works, including two woven mats being shown in the U.S. for the first time. It runs through January 24, 2027. In its fall arts preview, the San Antonio Express-News called Kang "the first South Korean artist to have a solo show at the McNay Art Museum" and said the show turns its galleries into immersive spaces.

The night before it opens, on Thursday, October 29, the museum hosts a free lecture, The Life and Work of Suki Seokyeong Kang. Registrants can see the exhibition from 5 to 6 p.m., before the 6 p.m. talk. That gives you a look at the show a day early.

Why the long runs favor the people who live closest

Adult general admission is $23 on the McNay's ticket portal. Against that price, the museum's free windows are generous, and they matter most for exhibitions that stay up for months.

Galleries are closed Monday and Tuesday. They're open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday and Friday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. The Cruz Ortiz show and Two Faced both run through mid-March. Between now and then there are about two dozen free Thursday evenings and several first Sundays. For a household a short drive away, three or four free evenings can cover the whole season.

A neighbor's fall calendar

These are the dated events on the McNay's calendar from today through December:

1. Thursday, October 8, 6–9 p.m. Second Thursday on the grounds, celebrating Two Faced. It's free, but registration is required.
2. Tuesday, October 27. Artfully Served: A McNay Supper Series features Chef Jungsuk "Sue" Kim of The Magpie. The museum's page lists it as sold out.
3. Thursday, October 29. The free Kang lecture, with early exhibition access from 5 to 6 p.m.
4. Friday, October 30. Modern Paris and the Kang exhibition both open.
5. Sunday, November 1, 1–4 p.m. The free McNay Family Day: Passport to Art, with hands-on art and live performance in the galleries and on the grounds. It falls on the month's first Sunday, so general admission is free from noon to 5 p.m. that day too.
6. Sunday, November 8. A People's History: The American Experiment on Stage closes in the Lawson Print Gallery. The show uses theater designs, maquettes and costumes from Hair, Hamilton, The Color Purple and Angels in America.
7. Thursday, November 12. The last Second Thursday of 2026. The series runs March through May and September through November.
8. Sunday, November 29. Last day of the first Two Faced installation.
9. Thursday, December 17. The second Two Faced installation opens.

The second rotation of Spotlight: K-12 Artists Respond to Katie Pell, which includes work by middle-school students, runs through January 3.

The grounds, which never charge

The museum's 25 acres outside the galleries are getting attention too. Edra Soto's Screenhouse is a 10-foot-high modernized gazebo made from about 400 charcoal-colored, 12-inch cast concrete blocks. It's the first outdoor sculpture on the McNay grounds by a Latina artist. Its design draws on rejas and quiebrasoles, the decorative blocks and iron grilles found in residential neighborhoods across the Caribbean and the American South. The museum describes it as a place for visitors to gather, near Tony Smith's sculpture Asteriskos. The June announcement scheduled the installation for late July, and the piece now appears on the museum's Outdoor Sculptures page. "The McNay's grounds are free and open to all during daylight hours," McLendon said in the announcement.

On September 29, the museum announced a $500,000 grant from the Kronkosky Charitable Foundation. It pays for an accessibility assessment of the 25-acre campus and its digital and program offerings, followed by prioritized improvements, and the museum said work would begin right away. Once daylight saving time ends this fall, the grounds close at 6 p.m. instead of 7 p.m.

The McNay is one of the things that make this corner of North New Braunfels feel like home, and its free Thursday evenings are among the easiest pleasures the neighborhood offers. If you're thinking about how close to cultural anchors like this you want to live, or how to present your Terrell Hills home to buyers who care about them, Leslie Reyes Idais would be glad to talk it through. Let's Connect.